


Striking Shara and Buried Lulal

by solarpillar (solarwind)



Category: Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-15
Updated: 2016-11-15
Packaged: 2018-08-31 04:22:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 711
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8563927
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/solarwind/pseuds/solarpillar
Summary: It started in a place called Ancient Mesopotamia, the cradle of civilization and the two dances.The first dance is at least as old as the universe, endless and unstoppable.The second dance is to a song, its weights nothing and infinite.





	1. Chapter 1

It started in a place called Ancient Mesopotamia.

Once, reigned a goddess, who knew two kinds of dances. It was difficult to tell which dance came first, but the one to a song was said to be the second.

Then, history was shattered, again and again. A stabilizing god was pushed onto the throne, then dragged off again, from tales of stars he was weaved and into many shooting stars he became. There was said to be a fight, a war, but there was also a broken record between two gods, a wish granted under a promise.

On the edge of endless wars, farmers and shepherds laboured, the songs of farmers grew weaker as the screams of shepherds grew louder, the blood would one day soak them both.

Abel remembers his brother’s songs. There were no lyrics to them, only a hum. Adam once sang the same, in a speech the children could not understand.

Abel has never danced the second dance to Cain’s songs. There was never any dance between them. As a ghost he has watched Cain dance the first dance against many, leaving blood to pool seven times seven as he was made to bleed, as lances pointed endlessly to the sky against arrows that fell like summer storms.

He hears Cain again one day, singing in a barely audible volume, in a dialect of Akkadian. A young god cried for a worker for his fields, a small calf too innocent to understand, ropes and yokes were brought, a god shows another god how it’s done. A goddess of birds and boundaries orchestrated the whole.

“…You are singing an ululumama again, Naoya,” says the current Abel.

“…Don’t speak to me in that language. Not even a word.”

He remembers. With the curse gone, he only remembers, instead of forgetting. 

Before being cousins they have been brothers, before being brothers they have been sisters. Before all that, they have been stardust, without gender, dancing the most primal dance of all: that of gravity.

Naoya can never pretend he is human again. Yet Kazuya, who willingly forsake his, still can.

The first dance destroys. The second creates. Cain danced the first for centuries for naught. Kazuya danced the first dance once, and the tides were turned for his brother and cousin.

“Hey,” says the godling, handing his cousin a new tablet, not of clay but of plastic and boards, “design a new world for me.”

The goddess had two sons. Each inherited a single dance. One crafted as the other charged, yet still they lost.

When the wheel turned again, goddess and god became woman and man, two sons again danced under the sun.

The godling has an idea who has the second dance.


	2. Chapter 2

To dance, one needs a song.

Two sons once danced to their mother’s songs, slander and darling, each beloved in their own way. They wore rags and were covered in dust, hair wild and nails sharp, danced on the steppe that would soon cease to exist.

Two sons, once, sat in the field, innocent from the very concept of a dance, nonetheless danced to a drum song that bled them like lambs. Like the innocent oxen they were roped into the song, they loved and cherished and took a knife to that love.

Sacrifice, they said, was to offer the utmost love.

Yet love was so intimate with pain.

The older brother struck, the younger brother fell, a lance that flied endlessly and a figure buried under the doorways. Stories of siblings repeated. Under the eyes of their mother, under the many stars, the younger, the darling, the beloved son fell.

The older, the slander, the sinner fled. He was stricken many times, killed many times, fell many times yet still he lived and rose with weapons in hands.

The brothers became wary of the first dance, yet it was their lifeline, in a way.

The start was an ending, by the falling sun and the emerging stars.

The ending is a start, by the rising stars and falling grace, the brothers are together in dance again.

They hum, wordlessly at first, dissonant at first, yet soon a new common tongue arose from between them, weaving itself into a song.

A reign of stars starts anew.

**Author's Note:**

> Ululumama is a term in Sumerian. It is translated as "lament" in The Pennsylvania Sumerian Dictionary, but personally I think that translation isn't exact.
> 
> The title is a metaphor, I don't think Atlus even researched that much and even if they did, there is no reason they would be reincarnated from Shara and Lulal.
> 
> And, I mean, look at how the protagonist stands. If he was someone else before Abel and Marduk, I'd say he was probably Dumuzid.


End file.
